shellac all shook up; now what?

OK, I'm trying flakes for the first time. I'm attempting to make a 1# cut.

So I poured 2 cups of alkie-haul in a quart jar, then I measured out 2 oz. of flakes using a cheapo diet scale. I ground up the flakes in SWMBO's handy-chopper. Hope she doesn't mind. :)

Then I added the flakes to the alkie-haul and commenced shaking. At first I thought it was completely insane to think that you could ever dissolve the dry equivalent of about 3 cups of powder in 2 cups of liquid. I shook, and shook, and shook, and nothing happened.

I let it sit a minute or two, then I did a new round of shaking. After about four good sloshes, something magic happened right before my eyes. Instead of brown liquid on top of a conblafulation of gooey looking, translucent flakes sticking to everything, I suddenly had a jar full of what looks like coffee with a drop of milk added to it. Amazingly, it's only something like 18 fl. oz.

Is it actually done that fast? I was under the impression it took days weeks to dissolve fully. I see all the knees and elbows and stuff I need to get rid of at the bottom. I'm thinking I might ought to just let it sit for a good bit and then pour off the liquid into another jar. Decant and de-knee in one step.

I'm also thinking, come to think of it, that 1# cut is a little annoying to use. I should add a little more. Maybe another ounce to make a 1.5# cut. I think that's what I wound up with last time, with the Bullseye stuff. 3# was too thick, 1# was so thin that I had to do 30 coats just to get the film to rise above miniscule undulations in the wood grain. So yes, I think I'll go add another ounce of flakes while I've got everything out anyway.

Anyway, this was pretty painless if it was that easy. And this should probably still be good until the first of May, at least?

I can't wait to see what color this comes out. I had the impression that "orange" shellac was more of an amber poly type color, but it's more like coffee. It ought to be good for making purplish KD walnut look more like walnut is supposed to look, but it might be too overpowering on maple or mahogany. I'll have to try it and find out, won't I? :)

When can I try it? Can I try it now? Tomorrow? Friday? Once it has apparently dissolved, is that the end of the prep work and time to get out some raw wood to play with? Or do I probably have a huge glob of undissolved lurking in there, which keeps sloshing out of view, and will only reveal itself after this brew has settled completely?

Reply to
Silvan
Loading thread data ...

You can try it as soon as you pour the alcohol in. But my advice is to let it sit until all the gooey stuff on the bottom gets taken up into the alcohol. Then you know what cut you are dealing with and it will also go what you are putting it on the wood in the first place for.

It will last long enough to make you forget when you actually cooked off this batch.

Deb

Reply to
Dr. Deb

Well, as far as I can figure, all the gooey stuff is really gone, just that quick. Even after I went back and dumped another ounce of raw, un-crushed flakes in there. Amazing. I figured it would take days. Especially at the ~40 F temperature I did it at. I haven't decanted it yet because the milky stuff is still finely suspended, but I've given it a little test dip on a scrap from every species I had laying around. It looks a *lot* better on wood than it did in the jar. I can see using it over blonde because sometimes blonde is just too revealing of the fact that a wood doesn't have as much color as I'd like.

It was ridiculously easy to make compared to all the tales of woe I've read here. I think I'm sold on doing it this way. Better than buying a can and wasting some portion of it. Mix as needed.

I'm using flakes from Lee Valley BTW, if anyone cares.

Reply to
Silvan

Reply to
tiredofspam

Don't forget to filter. Unless you're a professional decanter, you'll pull up some bits you don't want. (IANA shellac guru, but I've decanted, centrifuged, dialyzed, filtered and otherwise separated lots of thises from scads of thatses.)

Use a separatory funnel (ebay has 'em) to draw off the waxy gunk at the bottom. Best way, bar centrifuging, for the home shop. I'm gonna do it that way as soon as, well, someday. An analytical chemist could post some more hints and tips.

Reply to
Australopithecus scobis

that would be the wax residue. Let it sit quietly for a few days and decant. Or if you got no probs with wax (no frnch polish in your horizon) then go ahead and use it as is.

because

doesn't have

Yeah, blondes have that problem...

Bingo. But the can stuff has its uses, so don't be shy.

Reply to
Noons

[snip]

Oh, boy, now, I'm confused. I thought the whole idea behind buying the flakes is that there would be no wax. Otherwilse wouldn't you just get the stuff out of the can?

TIA, Josie

Reply to
firstjois

Some flakes are dewaxed, some aren't (Hock is dewaxed, FWIW). The true beauty of dry shellac is that it keeps damn-near forever and you can mix any sort of cut that you want.

Reply to
Joe Wells

Silvan wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@individual.net:

It really _is_ that easy. It's so easy that even someone as impatient as I am has to really work to screw it up.

Use a thicker cut if you ever get back to using that lathe of yours, and rub it on as a friction finish.

The last shellac purchase I made came a week or so ago, from Homestead. They have the ultra pale, hyper-refined in Germany that seems to best match the Platina that our resident, ustabe shellac vendor made famous. And was what I used on the parts of the in-process maple nightstands which have already been shellacked.

BTW, dealing with Homestead is another of those really nice experiences in woodworking. Definitely recommended.

Now if I can just get back to that nightstand project...

Patriarch

Reply to
Patriarch

On Tue, 01 Feb 2005 13:46:29 -0500, the inscrutable Silvan spake:

Hint: Do NOT tell her. She'll bust a stitch whappin y'all upside the haid.

Did you warm the jar of solution in hot water? It speeds things up. Use denatured alky instead of isopropyl? It also speeds things up.

The milky substance is water and/or wax. Let it precipitate out and pour off the pure liquid above it. That's your dewaxed sheelacky.

Yes, decant and repent, sinner. Elbows and knees? You didn't buy any of the pure stuff from our Saint of Sheelack, didja? Foo. He sold the pure sh*t, man. Da kine.

Mais oui.

Once you wipe it on a piece of wood (thin coats, right?) it's considerably lighter than the coffee color you see now because it's not diffusing light through 3-5" of finish.

Once it's dissolved, it's ready to go. Wipe away!

--------------------------------------------------------------- Never put off 'til tomorrow |

formatting link
what you can avoid altogether. | Dynamic Website Applications

---------------------------------------------------------------

Reply to
Larry Jaques

Not really. De-waxed or not is a type of shellac, if it comes in flakes or pre-mixed is simply a distribution choice. What you can't get (usually) pre-mixed is the variety you get with flakes.

No sweat, though: removing the wax is as simple as decanting or filtering that "milky" stuff you talked about. Or just ignoring it if your particular finish target doesn't bother with wax.

Reply to
Noons

Silvan wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@individual.net:

...

It takes a day or so for mine to fully dissolve, but I don't do the chopping step that you do.

I'm not sure what you mean by knees and elbows. I use dewaxed flake shellac which is pretty clean to start with; put it in a clean container with good alcohol and I don't have a lot of junk to decant.

...

Probably. I keep mine sealed in a dark cupboard, it lasts many months.

Yeah, it looks very dark in the jar but the coats will look much lighter. Orange shellac on walnut is awesome, but I can't imagine orange on maple or mahogany...

Once it's dissolved you're ready to go (assuming it's dewaxed and you aren't trying to decant a waxed shellac).

Try the shellac over linseed oil. I love that look.

Cheers, Nate

Reply to
Nate Perkins

Us all? I'm a little confused by that. You do realize that y'all is a plural subject pronoun, don't you?

ah we you y'all s/he/it they

I didn't warm it, no. Yes, it's good drinkin' hootch with some wood squeezin's mixed in. Fresh can. A can designed by imbeciles too. I made a hell of a mess trying to pour it into a jar. Luckily denatured alcohol is also the stuff they put in spray cans and sell as ice melter, so all it did was melt some of the snleet in on my shop porch. I had the good sense not to try to pour it inside my wooden shop, which turned out to be a really good thing. :)

Seems to be a touch business, that. Breathe on it good, and it stirs back up. I should think about some clever way to siphon it off, rather than pour.

Will the gunk take up less and less space eventually? Right now the jar is about 2/3 gunk, 1/3 pure dewaxed shellac. If I siphon this off, I don't get much shellac for my trouble. Either way, what do I do with the jar of ultra waxy leftovers? I got rid of the last of my last batch of (canned) shellac by using it to get the Yule bonfire off to a good start. I hate to waste 2/3 of a jar of this stuff though if there's some use for it. (Although I'm hoping the ratio of gunk to black coffee will improve by morning.)

Probably not any elbows and knees. There's a little bit of random black crap in the bottom.

Yeah, it looks pretty good. I'm going to have to hurry up and get something ready to finish with it, n'est-ce pas?

I'm not sure if I like this on walnut or not. I'll have to experiment. It does good things for maple assuredly.

Reply to
Silvan

Well, there's a little more to it than that. You can buy dewaxed out of a can. They call it "Seal Coat" I think. You can buy dewaxed flakes too, I think.

I bought these flakes for a coupla good reasons.

  • Zinsner doesn't market shellac in any flavor other than vanilla AFAIK. (Blonde.) I wanted to try orange, because I actually used to like the ambering effect of poly, but I like the working qualities of shellac better. I wanted to explore the options for toning without staining.

  • I wasted a good third of my last can of shellac because it went bad before I used it up. I do small projects. I can mix flakes in small batches.

  • I wanted to mix some flakes just for the Dorker Points. I are a real dorker now that I have taken granulated bug spoo and turned it into wood finish.

  • I was too cheap to pay for dewaxed flakes.

It came out looking pretty good, incidentally. I've got four coats on a walnut scrap now. I'm not quite convinced I like the color after all, but at least I still get the Dorker Points. If I wind up not using it on walnut, I'll use it on something else. It looks good on maple and oak. Not so impressive on greenish poplar, but that's not a great surprise. Haven't tried on Jum's finest yet.

Reply to
Silvan

You must not be from the south. "All y'all" is the plural. :-)

I'm not optimistic about it dissolving anymore just by sitting there. As for what to do with the leftovers -- I have used the wax residue to seal the ends of green wood that's drying in my shop. It seems to work OK.

FWIW, I use cheesecloth to strain my shellac. Either buy fine stuff or double it. Put cheesecloth over the mouth of a clean container, hold it in place with a rubberband around the rim and pour.

I even tried using a coffee filter just to see how it worked, but I don't recommend that unless you have a lot of time. :-) (But the shellac sure came out nice and clean.)

Another FWIW, when I mix shellac I pulverize it in a coffee grinder reserved just for that. I pour the desired amount of alcohol into the jar and then sprinkle the flakes on top. I set the jar in a bucket partially filled with hot water (obviously keep any open heat sources away from this; I just use hot tapwater), give the shellac a couple of stirs and then put the lid on the jar (I put in on a bit loosely just in case there's any pressure built up from the heat plus alcohol).

Let it sit for a while and then give it a stir, put some more hot water in the bucket and re-seal. Repeat as necessary depending on the temperature in your shop, quality of the shellac, and whether the flakes are dewaxed or not (or even whether you're using flakes or not; buttonlac creates a waxy goo that needs a bit more attention than Paddylac Superblonde).

I usually do this operation the day before I need the shellac, and come back the next day and strain it. If you need "instant shellac" you can do the whole operation in an hour or two. You just might have a bit more residue to strain (and wind up with a thinner cut in the process)

Chuck Vance

Reply to
Conan the Librarian

"Plural"? I had that once ... it makes you cough.

Because I often spray shellac, I use those cheap, packaged paint filters they sell at the BORGS ... they work fine for shellac, IME.

Reply to
Swingman

Yeah, they sell amber (which is orange)in the same 3 lb cut as their blonde). They don't sell an amber dewaxed as far as I know.

batches.

The Zinsner should last much longer than your just mixed batch. Obviously the unmixed flakes will far outlast the Zinsner. Based on comparitive costs, I find that I could toss half the Zinsner (18 oz of a 32 oz can) cheaper than making my own 18 oz of shellac. You are far more limited in your flavors, however.

surprise.

I like amber on walnut. It seems to deepen and mellow the look. Using the amber on pine gives an old fashion look that I kinda like but the wife and daughter detest. Needless to say, the only amber shellac on pine at my house is on my shop cabinets.

Reply to
Dave Hall

Does this sound off to anyone? I don't think I've ever used more shellac (by volume) than alcohol. The blonde I have from Rockler sez 2oz (about

1/2 cup of flakes) of shellac in 8ox (1 cup) of alcohol for a 2# cut.

Does the random black crap look like bug parts? Didja get ahold of some buttonlac or something?

Reply to
Joe Wells

Thanks all for explaining waxed and de-waxed shellac and how they are used/made/bought. Big help. Josie

Reply to
firstjois

Reply to
Bob Bowles

HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.